Download or read book Boy Wives and Female Husbands written by Stephen O. Murray and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-04-01 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the many myths created about Africa, the claim that homosexuality and gender diversity are absent or incidental is one of the oldest and most enduring. Historians, anthropologists, and many contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked African same-sex patterns or claimed that such patterns were introduced by Europeans or Arabs. In fact, same-sex love and nonbinary genders were and are widespread in Africa. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands documents the presence of this diversity in some fifty societies in every region of the continent south of the Sahara. Essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines explore institutionalized marriages between women, same-sex relations between men and boys in colonial work settings, mixed gender roles in east and west Africa, and the emergence of LGBTQ activism in South Africa, which became the first nation in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also included are oral histories, folklore, and translations of early ethnographic reports by German and French observers. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands was the first serious study of same-sex sexuality and gender diversity in Africa, and this edition includes a new foreword by Marc Epprecht that underscores the significance of the book for a new generation of African scholars, as well as reflections on the book's genesis by the late Stephen O. Murray. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Murray Hong Family Trust. Access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/1714.
Download or read book Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa written by Adriaan van Klinken and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues of same-sex relationships and gay and lesbian rights are the subject of public and political controversy in many African societies today. Frequently, these controversies receive widespread attention both locally and globally, such as with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. In the international media, these cases tend to be presented as revealing a deeply-rooted homophobia in Africa fuelled by religious and cultural traditions. But so far little energy is expended in understanding these controversies in all their complexity and the critical role religion plays in them. This is the first book with multidisciplinary perspectives on religion and homosexuality in Africa. It presents case studies from across the continent, from Egypt to Zimbabwe and from Senegal to Kenya, and covers religious traditions such as Islam, Christianity and Rastafarianism. The contributors explore the role of religion in the politicisation of homosexuality, investigate local and global mobilisations of power, critically examine dominant religious discourses, and highlight the emergence of counter-discourses. Hence they reveal the crucial yet ambivalent public role of religion in matters of sexuality, social justice and human rights in contemporary Africa.
Download or read book Freedom to Love for All written by Yemisi Ilesanmi and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2013 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexuality rights remain a controversial issue in many parts of Africa; it is not just a controversial issue but also a taboo subject. Many countries in Africa still criminalize homosexuality. Sodomy laws remain part of the criminal laws thereby making it legally possible to persecute sexual minorities. For example Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Ghana all have laws under which homosexuality can be prosecuted. In South Africa, where the constitution recognizes same-sex relationships, gays and lesbians are often attacked, molested and persecuted for their sexual orientation. Many African societies do not provide enabling environments to discuss sexual orientation issues. Homosexuality has been condemned by many African leaders as Immoral, Un-African and a 'White man's disease'. In Nigeria, lawmakers are resurrecting a version of a widely condemned anti-homosexuality bill. Nigerian Lawmakers in a bid to rally popular support needed a scapegoat and the LGBT community provides an easy target. Poverty, corruption, unemployment, lack of security and the growing menace of Boko Haram are some of the many problems bedeviling Nigeria as a nation. Rather than focus on these urgent problems, Nigerian lawmakers decided once again to come in a 'straight' mass orgy of corruption to bully the gay minority; a cause always guaranteed to provide the otherwise unpopular lawmakers with cheap, majority support. When will they stop discussing who is sleeping with whom and start making laws to move this underdeveloped, oil rich nation forward?In the book FREEDOM TO LOVE FOR ALL: Homosexuality is not Un-African, Yemisi Ilesanmi takes a critical look at Nigeria's 'Jail the Gays' bill. In this interesting collection of her articles on Nigeria's Same Sex Marriage Prohibition bill, she makes a brilliant case for LGBT Rights as Human Rights and effectively debunks the myths surrounding homosexuality in Africa. Yemisi Ilesanmi also raises concern on what she termed 'The deafening silence of Nigerian Human rights activists on the homophobic bill'. She sheds light on homophobia in Nigeria and the forces driving the 'Jail the Gays' bill in Africa. She wrote: “I wonder why it is not considered politically incorrect to ask if Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals or Transsexuals have equal rights as heterosexuals. If we are agreed that no one should be discriminated against, why are we still debating if Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals are entitled to Human Rights? Last time I checked LGBTs are people too! Well, debate is good because in some countries like Nigeria, many are yet to be convinced that Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals are actually human beings.”
Download or read book Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa written by Ezra Chitando and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues of homosexuality are the subject of public and political controversy in many African societies today. Frequently, these controversies receive widespread attention both locally and globally, such as with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. In the international media, these cases tend to be presented as revealing a deeply-rooted homophobia in Africa fuelled by religious and cultural traditions. But so far little energy is expended in understanding these controversies in all their complexity and the critical role religion plays in them. Complementing the companion volume, Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa, this book investigates Christian politics and discourses on homosexuality in sub-Saharan Africa. The contributors present case studies from various African countries, from Nigeria to South Africa and from Cameroon to Uganda, focusing on Pentecostal, Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. They critically examine popular Christian theologies that perpetuate homophobia and discrimination, but they also discuss contestations of such discourses and emerging alternative Christian perspectives that contribute to the recognition of sexual diversity, social justice and human rights in contemporary Africa.
Download or read book Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa written by Marc Epprecht and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The persecution of people in Africa on the basis of their assumed or perceived homosexual orientation has received considerable coverage in the popular media in recent years. Gay-bashing by political and religious figures in Zimbabwe and Gambia; draconian new laws against lesbians and gays and their supporters in Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda; and the imprisonment and extortion of gay men in Senegal and Cameroon have all rightly sparked international condemnation. However, much of the analysis has been highly critical of African leadership and culture without considering local nuances, historical factors and external influences that are contributing to the problem. Such commentary also overlooks grounds for optimism in the struggle for sexual rights and justice in Africa, not just for sexual minorities but for the majority population as well. Based on pioneering research on the history of homosexualities and engagement with current lgbti and HIV/AIDS activism, Marc Epprecht provides a sympathetic overview of the issues at play and a hopeful outlook on the potential of sexual rights for all.
Download or read book Human Rights and Homosexuality in Southern Africa written by Chris Dunton and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 1996 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the 1995 Zimbabwe International Bookfair the organisation of Gays and Lesbians in Zimbabwe was prevented from taking part. This opened up an unprecedented debate in southern Africa, which is conveyed in this report, together with a survey of African views on homosexuality, a global overview on homosexuality and the law, and an address list of human rights organizations and organi-zations working for gay and lesbian rights. A first-hand report and analysis of the new book fair drama in Harare 1996 is included in the new edition.
Download or read book Desire Work written by Melissa Hackman and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In postapartheid Cape Town—Africa's gay capital—many Pentecostal men turned to "ex-gay" ministries in hopes of “curing” their homosexuality in order to conform to conservative Christian values and African social norms. In Desire Work Melissa Hackman traces the experiences of predominantly white ex-gay men as they attempt to forge a heterosexual masculinity and enter into heterosexual marriage through emotional, bodily, and religious work. These men subjected themselves to daily self-surveillance and followed prescribed behaviors such as changing how they talked and walked. Ex-gay men also saw themselves as participating in the redemption of the nation, because South African society was perceived as suffering from a crisis of masculinity in which the country lacked enough moral heterosexual men. By tying the experience of ex-gay men to the convergence of social movements and public debates surrounding race, violence, religion, and masculinity in South Africa, Hackman offers insights into the construction of personal identities in the context of sexuality and spirituality.
Download or read book Heterosexual Africa written by Marc Epprecht and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS builds from Marc Epprecht’s previous book, Hungochani (which focuses explicitly on same-sex desire in southern Africa), to explore the historical processes by which a singular, heterosexual identity for Africa was constructed—by anthropologists, ethnopsychologists, colonial officials, African elites, and most recently, health care workers seeking to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This is an eloquently written, accessible book, based on a rich and diverse range of sources, that will find enthusiastic audiences in classrooms and in the general public. Epprecht argues that Africans, just like people all over the world, have always had a range of sexualities and sexual identities. Over the course of the last two centuries, however, African societies south of the Sahara have come to be viewed as singularly heterosexual. Epprecht carefully traces the many routes by which this singularity, this heteronormativity, became a dominant culture. In telling a fascinating story that will surely generate lively debate, Epprecht makes his project speak to a range of literatures—queer theory, the new imperial history, African social history, queer and women’s studies, and biomedical literature on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He does this with a light enough hand that his story is not bogged down by endless references to particular debates. Heterosexual Africa? aims to understand an enduring stereotype about Africa and Africans. It asks how Africa came to be defined as a “homosexual-free zone” during the colonial era, and how this idea not only survived the transition to independence but flourished under conditions of globalization and early panicky responses to HIV/AIDS.
Download or read book Unspoken Facts written by Marc Epprecht and published by Galz. This book was released on 2008 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homosexuality. Lesbians. Gay rights. Homophobia. These terms have come up quite a bit in recent years in Africa to the shock, embarrassment and even anger of many people. This book is about that, and about the coming out (into public view) of individuals who in the past tended to keep a low pro?le. What does the history of homosexuality and the reactions against it tell us about African history in general? And how might this knowledge help us in struggles against HIV/AIDS, gender violence and other social inequalities in contemporary Africa? Based on Marc Epprecht's award-winning monograph Hungochani: the history of a dissident sexuality in southern Africa, along with creative contributions from other pioneering scholars in the field Unspoken Facts offers a sympathetic portrayal of the lives of people who do not conform to society's dominant expectations in terms of love and marriage. Additional material includes several fictionalised accounts of same-sex relationships in southern Africa.
Download or read book Hungochani written by Marc Epprecht and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2004 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the stereotypes of African heterosexuality - from the precolonial era to the present.
Download or read book Politicizing Sex in Contemporary Africa written by Ashley Currier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely account of politicized homophobia contests portrayals of the African continent as hopelessly homophobic, highlighting how elites deploy it.
Download or read book Kenyan Christian Queer written by Adriaan van Klinken and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular narratives cite religion as the driving force behind homophobia in Africa, portraying Christianity and LGBT expression as incompatible. Without denying Christianity’s contribution to the stigma, discrimination, and exclusion of same-sex-attracted and gender-variant people on the continent, Adriaan van Klinken presents an alternative narrative, foregrounding the ways in which religion also appears as a critical site of LGBT activism. Taking up the notion of “arts of resistance,” Kenyan, Christian, Queer presents four case studies of grassroots LGBT activism through artistic and creative expressions—including the literary and cultural work of Binyavanga Wainaina, the “Same Love” music video produced by gay gospel musician George Barasa, the Stories of Our Lives anthology project, and the LGBT-affirming Cosmopolitan Affirming Church. Through these case studies, Van Klinken demonstrates how Kenyan traditions, black African identities, and Christian beliefs and practices are being navigated, appropriated, and transformed in order to allow for queer Kenyan Christian imaginations. Transdisciplinary in scope and poignantly intimate in tone, Kenyan, Christian, Queer opens up critical avenues for rethinking the nature and future of the relationship between Christianity and queer activism in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.
Download or read book Research Handbook on Gender Sexuality and the Law written by Chris Ashford and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-28 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative and thought-provoking Research Handbook explores not only current debates in the area of gender, sexuality and the law but also points the way for future socio-legal research and scholarship. It presents wide-ranging insights and debates from across the globe, including Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Australia, with contributions from leading scholars and activists alongside exciting emergent voices.
Download or read book Aliens in the Household of God written by Paul Germond and published by New Africa Books. This book was released on 1997 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This goundbreaking volume explores, and challenges, the prejudice and discrimination that gay people experience within South African churches. Drawing from a broad and diverse base, these stories and essays suggest that 'heterosexism' is the problem.
Download or read book Legislating Gender and Sexuality in Africa written by Lydia Boyd and published by University of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, a more formalized and forceful shift has emerged in the legislative realm when it comes to gender and sexual justice in Africa. This rigorous, timely volume brings together leading and rising scholars across disciplines to evaluate these ideological struggles and reconsider the modern history of human rights on the continent. Broad in geographic coverage and topical in scope, chapters investigate such subjects as marriage legislation in Mali, family violence experienced by West African refugees, sex education in Uganda, and statutes criminalizing homosexuality in Senegal. These case studies highlight the nuances and contradictions in the varied ways key actors make arguments for or against rights. They also explore how individual countries draft and implement laws that attempt to address the underlying problems. Legislating Gender and Sexuality in Africa details how legal efforts in the continent can often be moralizing enterprises, illuminating how these processes are closely tied to notions of ethics, personhood, and citizenship. The contributors provide new appraisals of recent events, with fresh arguments about the relationships between local and global fights for rights. This interdisciplinary approach will appeal to scholars in African studies, anthropology, history, and gender studies.
Download or read book Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa written by Nwando Achebe and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unapologetically African-centered monograph that reveals physical and spiritual forms and systems of female power and leadership in African cultures. Nwando Achebe’s unparalleled study documents elite females, female principles, and female spiritual entities across the African continent, from the ancient past to the present. Achebe breaks from Western perspectives, research methods, and their consequently incomplete, skewed accounts, to demonstrate the critical importance of distinctly African source materials and world views to any comprehensible African history. This means accounting for the two realities of African cosmology: the physical world of humans and the invisible realm of spiritual gods and forces. That interconnected universe allows biological men and women to become female-gendered males and male-gendered females. This phenomenon empowers the existence of particular African beings, such as female husbands, male priestesses, female kings, and female pharaohs. Achebe portrays their combined power, influence, and authority in a sweeping, African-centric narrative that leads to an analogous consideration of contemporary African women as heads of state, government officials, religious leaders, and prominent entrepreneurs.
Download or read book The Cultural Politics of Female Sexuality in South Africa written by Henriette Gunkel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-01-21 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexual identity has emerged into the national discourse of post-apartheid South Africa, bringing the subject of rights and the question of gender relations and cultural authenticity into the focus of the nation state’s politics. This book is a fascinating reflection on the effects of these discourses on non-normative modes of sexuality and intimacy and on the country more generally. While in 1996, South Africa became the first country in the world that explicitly incorporated lesbian and gay rights within a Bill of Rights, much of the country has continued to see homosexuality as un-African. Henriette Gunkel examines how colonialism and apartheid have historically shaped constructions of gender and sexuality and how these concepts have not only been re-introduced and shaped by understandings of homosexuality as un-African but also by the post-apartheid constitution and continued discourse within the nation.
